The subject matter disclosed relates to a technology for flexibly combining computer resources among data centers in which a plurality of computer resources (e.g., host computers, storage, and appliances such as firewalls) are coupled via a plurality of network apparatus.
In recent years, the demand for the data center has been growing as more and more individuals, companies, or organizations use cloud services to utilize computers or computer resources for application software flexibly and inexpensively.
In such a data center, many computer resources such as host computers, storage, and appliances (firewalls, load balancers, management apparatus, and the like) are coupled via a network. In some cases, two or more data centers provide their combined computer resources for cloud services and various other uses.
A cloud service and a data center are not always run by the same organization, and a cloud business and a data center business may be different organizations. In that case, a data center is used by a plurality of cloud businesses, each of which in turn provides a service to cloud users (for example, tenants).
A one of challenges in data centers is to provide computer resources quickly and inexpensively by resolving the excess/shortage of computer resources and thus improving the utilization of computer resources. Data centers, which provide computer resources for various uses, also need to separate computer resources for different uses. Providing computer resources inexpensively further requires a reduction in man-hours spent on operation and management.
Various methods have been devised to deal with the challenges in data centers described above, such as improving the computer resource utilization, separating computer resources, and reducing the operation management man-hours.
A common method of improving the computer resource utilization is host computer aggregation using a server virtualization technology. For example, a server virtualization method is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,075,938 A (Abstract of the Disclosure and other sections).
Network separation by network virtualization is used as a method of separating computer resources. For example, a network virtualization method is described in US 2013/0058215 (Abstract of the Disclosure and other sections).
Operation and management automation by cloud management software is advancing as a method of reducing operation management man-hours. This involves unified management of a plurality of resources in a way optimized for a cloud service. For example, a cloud management method and software are described in “vCloud Director” published by VMware Inc.